Explorer.exe problem...

[Aion]

Hey guys...

My desktop started freezing up last night as soon as I reach my desktop on startup. The only thing I can do is open task manager. Through some guesswork, it seems like I have found the problem: Explorer.exe. If I shut down explorer.exe and restart it using run everything works fine.

The problem started straight after running AVG 7.5 last night. It found 3 viruses, all of which were deleted (I ran all of my spyware/anti-virus, then deleting them - I was trying to find the cause of a smaller problem involving blank pages). Afterwards, I restarted to find that I couldn't click anything and my arrow always changes into a loading thingie when I move it over the taskbar.

I have started noticing stuff crashing at random lately. If I'm browsing through folders my PC does occasionaly freeze up, the folders status changing to "Not Responding". I have also noticed other things, like explorer.exe having an error and not shutting down properly when I turn off my PC. Nothing as annoying as my current problem has ever happened before.

Thanks in advance.

P.S: I don't have access to the Windows XP disc.

 

[caravel]

Try running msconfig and from the general tab select diagnostic startup, then go to services and click hide all microsoft services. Then disable those serives that are left. Click ok and restart your computer. On restart you'll get a dialogue box informing you that you've changed your system with msconfig, chech the go away box and dismiss it.

Try rebooting and testing a few times to see if the problem has gone away. If so then you know it's a program/service running at startup that is causing your problem, and can proceed from there, if not then AVG may have stumbled on false detection and damaged something.

I use AVG all the time, and have had a problem like this in the past on a system at work. Though not after any virus was detected or removed. Eventually it seemed to fix itself but occasionally it comes back.

 

[Aion]

Thanks for replying.

*internet seems sluggish*

My PC loaded without any problems when I did what you said... What would you suggest I do next?

The five services that I unchecked in msconfig are...

ATI HotKey Poller
ATI Smart
InstallDriver Table Mana...(ger? can't see the rest)
Machine Debug Manager
Office Source Engine

 

[caravel]

Thanks for replying.

*internet seems sluggish*

My PC loaded without any problems when I did what you said... What would you suggest I do next?

The five services that I unchecked in msconfig are...

ATI HotKey Poller
ATI Smart
InstallDriver Table Mana...(ger? can't see the rest)
Machine Debug Manager
Office Source Engine

Go back to msconfig and click the startup tab. Post up a list of what you can see (none of them will be checked because you set the dianostic start up). If you see anything that is cut off, then use the column headers to drag the columns to a larger width (as if you were using M$ Excel) so that you can read it. Saying that, the initial startup list names, the first column, should do for now.

Of the non M$ services you can afford to leave the ATI ones disabled. The InstallDriver Table Manager should be set to manual. Itunes/Quicktime may have installed this. You can do this later, so leave it disabled for now. The Office Source Engine is usually not critical, you should be able to get away with it at manual also. To fix these we need to go to the real services control panel, and not msconfig. First things first though. That list of the startup programs is needed next.

Regards


Caravel

 

[Aion]

Only these three...

avgw (it should be deleted...) - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

cftmon - C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

jusched - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_06\bin\jusched.exe - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

 

[caravel]

Only these three...

avgw (it should be deleted...) - C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG7\avgw.exe /RUNONCE - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

This is part of your AVG, reenable this by seleting selective startup from msconfig and checking the box. Then ok it and restart. See if the crash returns, if not then next we need to go into the services console and sort out some of the non M$ services so that they don't run automatically.

cftmon - C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Leave disabled unless you use Ms Office's speach input?

jusched - C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_06\bin\jusched.exe - SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Leave disabled, it is better to update the J2RE (Sun Java 2 Resource Environment Runtime) manually.

 

[Aion]

Sorry for my slowness.

Tried twice with only avg enabled, no crash. No idea why AVG is still on my system after uninstalling it.

Oh, and I don't use Ms Office's speach input.

 

[caravel]

Then you can leave it as it is. Which Antivirus program are you using now? I'd actually recommend AVG, though in view of your past problem maybe not such a good idea. Symantec/Norton is overweight scareware rubbish I'd avoid that one.

Next you need to click on the start menu, then run and enter "services.msc". After this you should see the services console.

Find the "InstallDriver Table Manager" in the list and set to manual. The "Office Source Engine" should be set to manual also. You should then reboot and see if the crash problem has returned. Whether or not it has you need to get back into services.msc and see if any of those two services has started running, if they have then one of them may be required for another program you have, though they shouldn't have. Setting them to manual leaves them available if they are needed. Applications needing those services can now start/stop them, if they have the permissions.

You may want to look for a guide to services optimisation. Probably 50% of the services running on XP are of no real use to you, and are just slowing the system down, and taking up memory space. It is a good idea to read through several guides before you go disabling something. It is also a good idea to read through a service's dependencies before disabling it. Finally it is very important to never disable services through msconfig as we did initially. Msconfig is fine for disabling those non microsoft services for troubleshooting purposes, but nothing more. To disable or change any other services you should use servces.msc only.